06-27-2014
• arclein
The team first started by growing a layer of nanowhiskers from insulating copper oxide on an outer layer of a single copper wire. They then treated those whiskers with a gold-palladium alloy, before finally depositing an electrochemically active coating of manganese oxide on the alloy. As a result, the nanowires acted as a sheath to encapsulate the copper wire, and form the first electrode.
To add a second electrode to complete the energy storage device, the researchers coated the first electrode with a solid electrolyte and a polymer partition, and then fitted another cylindrical electrode around that. The second electrode was then formed in the same way as the first electrode, but nanowhiskers were molded on a copper foil that acted as the final conducting tube a